Politics are beyond me

[kimberkit]

I don't understand:

1. Why CNN always has to break down voters' choices by their age/race/gender - firstly, I'm pretty sure socioeconomic status or whether you live in a city indicates how you vote more than your gender or race or even age. Secondly, I hate the fact that this grouping automatically promotes stereotyping, prejudice, and racism, along with artificially forcing people into group identities they wouldn't necessarily have chosen for themselves.
   
   Meanwhile, what do I do if various stereotypes conflict with each other? As a female, I should clearly have "pulled the lever with my vagina" and voted for McCain/Palin. Because I'm under 29, I should clearly have voted for Obama. As a member of a minority race, I should clearly have voted for Obama. As someone who actually likes guns (sorry, guys), I should have voted for McCain. Oh noes! What do I do? Quick, tiebreaker: I'm queer, so I should vote for ... neither of them! Huzzah.
   
   
2. Why, in the midst of a historic election, whole swaths of people can be urged to suddenly hate each other.
   
   Mormons in Utah decided they'd pour millions of dollars into promoting Yes on Prop 8. They managed to sway people in California to pass it, thus enforcing the message that gay people should never be entitled to the civil rights that marriage brings. In retaliation, we are told that we should boycott the whole state of Utah. Because clearly everyone in the state of Utah was responsible for this. Meanwhile, both the Church of Latter Day Saints and the Catholic Church claim that they're not targeting anyone, really. They're just enforcing God's plan. (To stuff gay people right back into the closet where they belong.)
   
   It's an ugly scene all around.
   ---
   Meanwhile, the media has decided to spotlight and blame black people for voting yes on Prop 8.:
   

   "The Obama people were thrilled to turn out high percentages of African Americans, but (Proposition 8) literally wouldn't have passed without those voters," said Gary Dietrich, president of Citizen Voice, a nonpartisan voter awareness organization.

   
   African Americans voted 70% yes on prop 8, after all. But there are only 10% of black Americans amongst voters to begin with. Look, guys, it's ridiculous to blame 7% of your voting population for passing a bill that passed by 52%. It's like blaming Ohio alone for electing George Bush. It might be tempting, but you'd have to forget everyone else that voted.
   
   Also, I dunno -- it seems more like ... it must be an awareness thing, too, within the black and gay communities. It's hard to be disenfranchised once (black), but to be disenfranchised twice (black AND gay) must be harder for much harder. Maybe black gay people end up more closeted than white gay people, which leave the end result of having gay people as a whole seem more "other" to the black community. Gay people wouldn't be quite as "other" if suddenly your cousin/sister/brother/aunt/uncle was out as being gay. And it would be harder to take away their right to get married to whoever they wanted.
   
   
3. Why I suddenly feel ... sorry for Sarah "I don't know that Africa is a continent and not a country" Palin. It makes no sense. She doesn't deserve pity; she signed up for the job, and whether or not the reports are true that she was a diva who wouldn't prep, she blew it. She blew her interview with Couric, she was a disgraceful mouthpiece to a smear campaign, she flunked debate prep, and she was an insult to the intelligence and potential of all women in America. I hated what she ended up standing for. And pity should be for people who don't get a wardrobe that costs more than most Americans make in a year.
   
   But still... some of this stomping on her grave thing seems so meanspirited. I mean, we should hope the door hits her in the ass on the way out, but we should not also rig the door to pour a bucket of pig slops over her head.
   
   
4. Why I started writing this thing to begin with... I need to go back to sleep. And you should go back to being happy the country is actually in the hands of someone competent and that this was a historic and great election.
   

Comments

re:3

[galorette.livejournal.com]

if we stomp hard enough now, maybe she won't pop up again in 4 or 8 years?

Re: 3

[swagmonkey.livejournal.com]

Meh. I don't think she helped the campaign -- yeah, some people apparently identified with her, but maybe not enough to outweigh all the people who just thought she was not prepared for such a high office in the US government. If pushing her that hard keeps her from coming back in another 4 years, does that actually help her opponents? I'm not convinced. But I also don't expect her to be back anyway, because I think she's had enough.

To Kim, though: yes, I do think she deserves some pity. She may or may not have underprepared for the interviews/debates, but I don't think that was the real problem. While you're campaigning, you don't have that much free time to be studying up on every piece of world news and political info from the last 50 years. Nobody expects you to have time to learn all that stuff while you're on the political trail. It works, generally, because the candidates have to know most of this stuff darn well before they start out on a campaign, and just have news and very recent stuff to keep up-to-date on, and maybe little refreshers on other things. Sarah Palin was not prepared, before she was ever asked to run for vice president. She probably never imagined she would be asked, until whatever moment it was that McCain and his team approached her about it. But once asked, it's a hard thing to turn down. I think she just never should have been chosen, but was thrown to the wolves once she got there. I don't know that we should fault the media or the people for being scornful of her inexperience and lack of appropriate knowledge for the position, because it would be silly to let her get away with it in a presidential race, but yes, I feel sorry for her for being in that position.

re: 1, it's a shame that such categorization encourages the continuation of these divides. However, they wouldn't categorize people in that way if it weren't on some level revealing of the way people vote. Not that all blacks vote for the same people, or all gays, but there are certain statistical tendencies, and it makes sense that the media reports the ones it can find. I think they might find socioeconomic conditions more telling than some of the categories they currently use, but it may be harder and/or less reliable to use those criteria. I mean, if you poll someone walking out of the voting booths, you can tell whether s/he's a man or a woman, black or white or asian, etc., but asking how much money s/he makes might not be taken so kindly.

And 2: Agreed. While I wish the Mormon churches hadn't encouraged their congregants to push for the amendment, returning hate for hate is not the solution...even if it were carefully enough targeted not to punish the whole state for something in which many weren't involved, or disagreed. Also, if people really go along with this anti-Utah action in return, then they can all play the pity card if these issues come up again. "Look at how poorly we were treated when we spoke up against the gay agenda! We're the victims here!" As proponents of gay rights, and civil rights for everyone, that's not the message we need to send.